Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs
GREEN BUILDING CONGRESS INAUGURATED INDIA COMMITTED TO TACKLING ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION: SHRI HARDEEP SINGH PURI, MINISTER OF STATE FOR HOUSING AND URBAN AFFAIRS
Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Housing and Urban affairs said that the government is making a determined effort to transform. India as a holistically sustainable nation,to tackle environmental degradation and climate change, a threat to the planet as a whole.
Inaugurating the 16th Green Building Congress here today, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri said that, environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability are the three pillars of Sustainable development. The 2030 development agenda of the United Nations has emphasized the role of sustainable cities by incorporating Sustainable Development Goal  11, i.e. Sustainable Cities and Communities for making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
India with over 6.33 Billion Sq.ft is amongst the top 5 countries in the world with the largest green building footprint, but needs to increase it urgently, in view of it’s large population. He said the government strongly believes that India should lead the Global Green Building Movement.
He said the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana  Mission, most ambitious and comprehensive programme of planned urbanisation in the world, focuses on use of new and alternate construction technologies and techniques.More than 8.6 lakh houses have already been sanctioned using green , environment friendly technologies.
Another flagship programme of the Ministry , Swachh Bharat Abhiyan  has a critical component of Solid Waste Management. All the Government agencies like CPWD, NBCC, etc. are constructing new buildings using sustainable technologies and all such buildings use the latest advancements ensuring the minimum wastage of water, 100% recycling of garbage. The 3Rs viz. Reduce, Recycle and Reuse is being international in the building construction ethos.Quoting Mahatma Gandhi who said, “Sanitation is more important than political independence,” the minister said that the government was striving hard to make India open defecation free by 2019.???In a spirit of competitive federalism under Swachh Bharat Mission, the Ministry has put in place the Swachh Survekshan, a ranking framework that will rank cities on the cleanliness index.The Ease of Living Index will also goad city administrators to give their best in order to get a better rank. This is where the general public can demand better outcomes from the local Government, the minister said.
Shri Puri said that, a Compendium of Prospective Emerging Technologies for mass housing compiled by the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council and 24 such emerging technologies have been chronicled in the Compendium which are available to State Government agencies and other stakeholders for use in their housing projects. This shows that the Government is committed to reducing the carbon footprint in whatever way required.
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation , another flagship programme under his Ministry, also aims to ensure increased amenity value of cities by developing greenery and well maintained open spaces ; and reduce pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorized transport , the minister said.
The purpose of the Smart Cities Mission, another flagship programme of the government under his ministry is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes, the minister said.
The Ministry is also planning a global housing technology challenge in order to attract the best of the global players and technologies to the country so that the ecosystem is itself saturated with players advocating green technologies.Green Buildings balance the synergies between growth on one and climate change on the other, Shri Puri said.
The Minister expressed his happiness over state Governments giving the developers in the Affordable Housing sector an additional incentive like faster clearance, Extra Floor Area Ratio and Rebate on Property Tax for complying with the IGBC Rating Systems.This incentive will encourage more and more developers to go green.The Green Cities Rating System for new and existing cities as a benchmarking tool to assess the long term green development of the city, would be very helpful, he said.
The Green Building Congress is being organised by CII’s Indian Green Building Council .
Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, presented the IGBC Platinum rated Green Building award to Hyderabad Metro Rail limited.Shri N.V.S.Reddy, Chairman of HMRL received the award.
Earlier, Shri V.Suresh , Chairman,IGBC, welcomed the gathering. Ms Lisa Bate,Chairperson of World Green Building Council, Shri Gurmit Singh Arora,Vice Chairman of IGBC and Shri Shekar Reddy, IGBC Hyderbad Chapter Chairman also spoke.